Raphael Vassallo The ‘Front Against Censorship’, formed in the wake of last month’s ban on university newspaper Ir-Realta’, will hold its first public protest against censorship on campus on December 4 between midday and 2pm.
The protest aims to raise awareness about the precarious state of civil liberties in Malta, after what appears to be a clampdown on free speech by the authorities in recent months.
Among the recent developments to have inspired both group and protest are: the ban of Realta’ over a short story by Alex Vella Gera – complete with police interrogation of 21-year-old student editor Mark Camilleri; the Classification Board’s decision to ban Andrew Nielsen’s Stitching from Maltese theatres; the arrest and prosecution of several Carnival party-goers for dressing up as religious figures last March; the forced removal of “naked’ clothes mannequins in a Mosta shop window, among others.
Faced with an apparent hardening of attitudes against freedom of expression, Front Against Censorship aims to “to give other students the opportunity to show (their) disapproval at the way certain issues are being handled, following various events regarding censorship.”
“It is a shame that though Europe has long embraced the separation of Church and State, our public institutions are filled with individuals who pursue the agenda of the Roman Catholic Church and not that of the people,” Mark Camilleri said when launching FAC last week. “The law and the public institutions are being indiscriminately used by a minority of people who believe that the state must stand by the Roman Catholic Church and defend its morals at the cost of the fundamental freedoms of all the citizens.”
FAC has also submitted a number of proposals for the government’s consideration. These are:
Proposal 1 To completely remove Article 7 of the Press Act, which deems it illegal to: by the use of equivocal expressions... injure public morals or decency.
Proposal 2 To remove Article 163 of the Criminal Code, put in effect in 1933, which states that:
“Whosoever by words, gestures, written matter, whether printed or not, or pictures or by some other visible means, vilifies the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion which is the religion of Malta, or gives offence to the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion by vilifying those who profess such religion or its ministers, or anything which forms the object of, or is consecrated to, or is necessarily destined for Roman Catholic worship, shall, on conviction, be liable to imprisonment for a term from one to six months.
Proposal 3 To remove the authority of the Board of Film and Stage Classification to ban plays or films by moral and/or political standards.
Proposal 4 To remove the authority of the Broadcasting Authority to withhold content aired on television stations which exhibits offensive language, violence or adult material after nine o’clock.
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